Wow. I actually managed to update this. Lol. You can blame the portion with Tsukino Kenji and Ikuku. It was pure hell to get out. Well, that and the fact that I couldn't bring myself to write anything for a long while. But this story won't be updated as often as my current ones. So don't get too excited.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Hellsing is Hirano Kohta's and Sailor Moon is Takeuchi Naoko's.

Moonlight Sonata

Chapter 3: Setting the Stage

By: Ceris Malfoy

December 15 ,1989

London, England

Their marriage was a private affair.

Or, rather, it was supposed to be a private affair. But between all the nobles they had to invite, or risk angering the wrong family, and the few people they wanted to invite but would only come if so-and-so could come as well, their wedding had turned into something resembling a circus.

It was strange Integra to walk down the aisle. She had never really pictured the day that she would be married, but the few times that she had, it had been to the thought that she would be walked down the aisle by Walter, and the groom would be a man she loved.

Childish dreams, but ones she mourned all the same.

Instead of Walter, she was lead down the aisle by a man she knew only by name – he was one of her captains. Instead of a man she loved, she was to be married to a man that both irritated her and scared her, a man that nonetheless she knew she could depend on.

They exchanged their vows in detached, frigid voices. Exchanged their rings in polite, meaningless touches. Exchanged their sealing kiss in bitter, cold determination. They gazed into each other's eyes – both a shade of blue, one shifting with odd shadows, the other an artic haze – and both exchanged a silent promise: For duty only.

1991

Japan

In the public eye of normal society, Tsukino Kenji was a successful, normal, Japanese male. He was 37 years of age, of average height and build, with average looks. Nothing about his person called attention or scrutiny. The only thing remarkable about him, in fact, was his story.

All his life, he has been wildly successful. Everything he did, he succeeded at, even as a small boy. By the time he was twenty, he had graduated top of his class at Tokyo University. From there he had started his own company. And while it was not quite one of the top corporations of Japan, the company was nowhere near unimportant, either.

His success gave him a wonderful house with a spacious yard in the more high-end neighborhoods of Juuban. It allowed his young wife to pursue her own dream of being a housewife and mother

Although he appeared normal, it was his young wife who belied that image.

Tsukino Ikuku, a 23-year-old female with pale skin and honey-brown eyes that appeared to glow gold in certain lights, was the only grandchild of Ikuhara Takanori... well, the only acknowledged one.

Ikuhara Takanori had been something of a playboy in his younger years. He took no wife, but sired at last count no less than 12 children, and it was suspected that there were another 9 or 10 running around somewhere. His favorite of the 12 acknowledged children was a young girl – Takahashi Hikaru. He spoiled her rotten, and often took her with him on his travels. It was on one of these travels that Takahashi Hikaru mysteriously ended up pregnant. Shortly after the birth, many loose tongues spread the rumor that the child was Takanori's own. Social workers started to sniff around, so Takanori agreed to do a paternity test. Takanori publicly released the DNA results – he was not the father.

Three days later, Hikaru ran off, never to be seen or heard from again. She left 3-week old Takahashi Ikuku lying on her father's bed, naked as the day she was born.

Takanori was heartbroken by his favorite child's decision, but never let it influence how he treated his grand-daughter. On her first-birthday, he formally adopted the babe, and raised her to the best of his abilities.

Had he lived long enough to see his grand-daughter married, he would have pulled aside Kenji and warned him about the peculiarities of Ikuku.

Ikuku was half-European, and though Takanori had no idea as to which blood-line she came from, he was aware that she had inherited something rather... unique from it. The odd habit of glowing eyes aside, Ikuku reeked of power. It was written in the way she talked, the way she walked, the way she breathed. When she was furious, an angry storm seemed to flicker just beyond his direct-line of sight, visible only when he wasn't looking directly at her. When she was happy, whichever room she was in would seem brighter, as if there was a glow to her that reflected off the polished furniture – even if he couldn't see it.

Odd things, strange things, to be sure, but nothing dangerous.

But, Takanori died of a heart-attack three-months before Tsukino Kenji even knew Ikuhara Ikuku even existed. So Kenji was never warned about the oddities. But they were there, though Kenji will never notice them. But others did, and unlike Kenji, they knew exactly what those oddities meant.

June 30, 1991

The Void

Usagi gradually became aware of herself. She was curled up and felt cramped. It was damp and different, and there was an odd, deep thrumming that was driving her up the wall. She opened her eyes, but she could see nothing. She was aware of the crystal – its presence was comforting to her. But at the same time, she felt ...empty, incomplete.

"Usagi." The voice was soothing, and altogether too familiar.

She jerked in surprise. "Queen…?"

"Usagi, I'm so sorry. I never meant this to happen. Not to you. Not to them." The queen's voice seemed to echo from everywhere at once. Usagi searched with her eyes, but all she could see was the same inky blackness.

"Queen, what...? How...?"

"Shh, my darling. I don't have much time, and I must explain some things to you." There was regret in the queen's voice. "First and foremost, you were never meant to house my daughter's soul. Two souls can not coexist in peace, Usagi. You were a special light created by the cauldron to be a new warrior, the first ever Sailor Senshi of the Moon. Serenity's soul was to be reborn in a still-born baby. Only, something went wrong. The woman who was to give birth to her body died." The queen took a deep breath. "Out of desperation, I let my daughter's soul gravitate to your body. In doing so, I messed everything up. Your soul was new, Usagi. Untested, untainted. A beacon of pure light. Hers was not."

Usagi frowned, not understanding. "But...?"

"Hush, Usagi." There was the phantom feeling of a hand running through her hair. "She committed suicide, Usagi. That tainted her soul. Your physical body could not handle the weight of a second, tainted soul, and that began to manifest in dozens of small ways that eventually added up to a very big problem. Because of my actions, you were never fully able to access the power of your star, instead instinctively using my daughter's crystal for things you should have been able to do yourself."

Understanding dawned in Usagi's mind. Her constant exhaustion, the way she kept dying after using the crystal, the way she had to borrow everyone's power to level up….

But it seemed the queen was still not done. "And then there was the destiny my actions tied you to." She paused, and the regret deepened in her voice. "You were never meant to be Queen, Usagi, or anything other than Sailor Moon."

Usagi's eyes widened in surprise. "But, Sailor Cosmos...?"

"Was supposed to be my daughter's ultimate form, after her days as Queen ended. You, as the Eternal Sailor Moon, were to be her companion, the one being capable of both fighting by her side and keeping her from loosing her mind from solitude. You were to be the only senshi of the moon."

Something painful clenched inside of her. "Then, Chibi-Usa…?"

"Small Lady was Destiny's way of fixing what I had done. A being that could take up the mantle of Sailor Moon when you became Queen and lost your ability to transform. Because the body is not capable of housing two souls, one would fade over time – the two struggling in constant upheaval until the stronger finally prevailed. In your case, Serenity only would have won close to the time she assumed the mantle of Queen." There was another pause. "Had you and Serenity been separate beings, as you should have been, Small Lady would have never been capable of transforming, if she had been born at all."

The queen sighed. "But I'm loosing track of myself, and I don't have much time left. Serenity will be born separately, as she should have been." She paused, and when she continued, there was determination in her voice, even as the sadness multiplied two-fold. "I have two things to tell you. First, when a senshi's star is destroyed, that's it. They can never be repaired. The senshi in question ceases to exist, in all times. Only in your memory will they have ever lived. Not even going back will change this. Second, Long Live the Queen."

And with that, Usagi's world exploded into noise and color.

June 30, 1991

Tokyo General Hospital / Whittington Hospital

In two different countries, in two different hospitals, two women both howled their agony aloud to anyone who could listen. Though they didn't even know of each other, or even realize they were both going through the highly painful event of childbirth at the same moment, they nevertheless connected on some deep level that no one would ever hope to understand.

Both women, when told to push, hurled forth savage roars and pushed at the same moment.

Both women, in their effort, gave forth everything they had.

One infant wailed, one did not.

So, how's that for a cliffhanger? Guess which one died?